"Who can sleep with all that yelling and squeaking going on? It's an incubus, Aisling, not a mouse. It's not going to crawl up your leg."
'That's what you think! Kill it! Or disperse it! Or whatever you did to make the other one go away."
Jim sighed and shambled over to where the incubus was struggling to sit up. "Look, buddy, you might as well leave. She's got a boyfriend already, and given the way they were making the whole house shake the last time they got it on, I'd say you don't stand a chance with her."
"But I am most talented," the blond night spirit protested in a heavy German accent. "I am the stallion extraordinary in bed."
I beat him on the head with one of my pillows. "Go away! And don't come back!"
"You do not want me? You do not crave my body? This is unheard of! This cannot be!"
"Believe it, stallion boy," Jim said. "She's tough when she wants to be, so if I were you, I'd take a hike,"
"A knife!" I yelled, still brandishing my pillow. "Jim, I command you to get me a gelding knife. If this guy wants to be a stallion—"
He dissolved in a flurry of white smoke even before I could finish the sentence.
"Ha! Victorious again!"
"Yeah," Jim drawled while I remade the bed and fluffed up my pillows. "Aisling, two; sexy, naked men who just want to give her the pleasure of a lifetime with no commitment, zero."
"Yeah, but... but... "
Jim cocked an eyebrow. I gave up and plopped down on the bed. "You're right. I'm crazy."
I woke up two hours later to find the third incubus sucking on my earlobe.
"Hello," he said, with a roguish grin. I am Teodore, and I'm here—"
"Right, that's it," I snarled, shoving him aside as I grabbed my silk bathrobe, pulling it on and tying the belt so tightly it almost cut off circulation to my lower half. "Come on, Jim."
"Come on? Come on where?" Jim sat up, shaking itself as it blinked at the incubus, who now rolled around striking seductive poses on my bed. "Another one? Geez, girl, what perfume are you using?"
I snatched up my purse, throwing open the door. "'We're going someplace where I can get some sleep without being molested. Demon, follow me."
Jim trailed me as I marched to the elevator, out to the thankfully empty lobby, across to the night clerk, waited while I asked my question and paid a large bribe to get an employee to break the hotel's rule regarding guest information, padded after me as I went back to the elevator, all without saying a word. I rapped hard on the door to the suite on the fifth floor.
A tousle-headed Pal opened it up, blinking sleepily at me.
"Morning," I said, pushing past him to enter the suite. "Which room is Drake's?"
He blinked a couple more times, then pointed to the left.
"Thanks. Jim, you can sleep out here, on the couch.
“Don't pee on anything. Don't eat anything that isn't offered to you first. Don't hump Istva’s leg. Good night."
I marched over to Drake's bedroom, pausing to look back at Pal, who still stood by the open door. "Uh ... he « alone, isn't he?"
Pal nodded.
"Good." Head high, I swept open the door, entering Drake's room with enough noise to alert him to my presence.
"Hello," I told him when he clicked on the light. I ignored the rush of heat that swept through me at the sight of a sleepy, naked Drake, forcing myself to not stare at his bare chest, more than a little grateful for the blankets covering his lower parts. "I'm sleeping with you tonight. Just sleeping. No sex. No touching. Not even a kiss. My room is infested with incubi."
He watched me silently as I tossed my silk bathrobe onto a tapestry armchair before sliding under the blankets on the bed (his air conditioner, I noticed, was working extremely well). I lay as close to the edge of the bed as I could to avoid touching him, clutching the blankets over my chest as I closed my eyes, trying like mad to ignore his heat.
'Incubi?" he finally said, his voice all but rubbing along my skin.
The mattress dipped. I opened my eyes to find a dark-haired man leering suggestively at me, "I am Jacob."
"Look behind you," I told him.
"Eh?" His head swiveled as he looked back to see Drake propped up on one elbow. "Blet!"
He disappeared without another word. I cocked a questioning eyebrow at Drake.
"Incubi," he agreed, nodding. do, assuming I pass this ritual that no one wants to talk about, and you like the looks of my application, what happens then? I assume we'd have to live fairly close together? At least in the same country?"
Rose the Guardian nodded. 'The traditional method of Guardian training is for the apprentice to live with the mentor, studying the various aspects of the dark powers and assisting with minor jobs until the mentor feels the apprentice is skilled enough to maintain a portal on her own."
"That would be a portal to Hell, right? Not, say, a portal to Cleveland?"
Rose nodded again. She was slight, dark-haired, and hailed from the Virgin Islands. Thus far my Guardian appointments had been with women from Chicago, Marseilles, and Istanbul. Out of the four, the Virgin Islands sounded like an idyllic place to learn to put the lid on the portal between the real world and the dark side of the Otherworld. "Once I evaluate your application, and those of the others who are seeking a mentor, I will let you know if we need to schedule a further interview. I admit that the fact you have the ability to summon and bind to you an unattached demon raises you significantly in my estimation, but I am concerned about the fact that you are also a wyvern's mate."
I waved a negligent hand. "Don't let it worry you. It's not an issue."
"Ah. Good. Well, I have your room number, so if I have any further questions, I will be in contact. Good afternoon."
"Thanks, and same to you."
I waited until Rose left the tiny cafe situated on a wide, shady verandah on the south side of the hotel before dropping my weary head onto my hands.
A cold, moist object pressed against my ankle.
"You may speak, Jim," I answered the unspoken request, my voice muffled against the cool marble tabletop.
"Did you have to command me to shut my yap in front of the Guardian? You couldn't have put it nicer? You couldn't have wrapped it up in that hokey medieval-speak you like to use whenever you're bossing me around? I may be a demon, Aisling, but I do have feelings!"
"Aisling, you like more drink? Food, maybe?"
"No, thank you, Zaccheo. Pm just peachy keen." I didn't look up to see the hopeful face of the waiter responsible for serving patrons on the verandah. Zaccheo had been hovering around me ever since I'd sat down to keep my Guardian appointments, rather like an annoying^ if friendly, pimply eighteen-year-old gawky bee.
"You like me to wait here until you need something?"
"No, thank you. I'm just fine."
"I be just over there if you need me. You call if you want something, yes?"
"Yes," I told the tabletop. "Absolutely. The very second a desire comes to mind, I'll let you know."
"Good. You call. I be over there, by the door. You call."
Zaccheo shuffled away.
"You could have asked him for another couple of sandwiches. This fabulous form of mine needs a lot of food, and that diet you've put me on is going to make it waste away to nothing."
I peered out through my fingers to where Jim was flaked out in the shade beside a bowl of water and an empty bowl that had previously held a chopped-up chicken sandwich. "The vet said you are twenty pounds over the standard for Newfies. No extra snacks, remember? And I'm sorry about hurting your feelings, but do you have to tell everyone that Drake thinks I'm his mate? Every single Guardian has been enthusiastic about me until you pipe up and mention that. I have two more appointments with potential mentors, and I'm telling you right here and now that I forbid you—forbid you—to mention to them that I'm a wyvern's mate!"
"You are a wyvern's mate? A wyvern's mate?"
My head shot up off my hands like it was one of those early NASA rocke
ts. The kind that didn't explode a few feet off the launch pad. On the other side of the round cafe table stood the tall black woman I'd met at the banquet the night before, a businesslike attaché case in her hand, wearing a beautifully patterned African print dress. "Oh. Nora. Hi. Um ... the wyvern thing ., . it's not a certainty, not really. That is a really pretty dress. Are those zebras? I love batiks. There's just something about handmade cloth that really rings my chimes."
She stared expressionless for a moment at me, then her face broke into a smile as she chuckled. Setting her attaché on an adjacent chair, she settled in the one Rose had vacated a few moments before. "Yes, they are zebras, and I quite agree about batiks. You are not very good at changing subjects, are you?"
I groaned and closed my eyes for a moment. Five Guardians down, and Moa left—and she had already expressed her dubiousness about my ability to be an apprentice. Crap.
"Aisling? Are you well? You look tired."
Jim snorted. "She should. What with all the naked guys hopping in and out of her bed all night—"
"Jim!" I yelled.
"Not to mention running to Drake for a little late-night nooky. The poor thing didn't get any rest last night." I poured one of the three pitchers of half-melted ice water that sat on my table onto Jim's head. It yelped in surprise. "Hey!"
I pointed out to the open lawn beyond the verandah. "Go smell the flowers."
Jim got to its feet slowly, water running off its dense black coat. "You're not supposed to leave me unattended, remember? If someone catches me, they'll bind me to limbo until you can fetch me back."
"I'll take that chance. Go. Walk. Smell. No peeing on anything pretty. And if you have to do anything else, just hold it until Nora and I are done talking."
Jim's furry face was sullen. "Is that—"
"Yes, it's an order." I waited until the demon was gone to turn back to Nora. She was making notes on a little pad with a ballpoint that had teeth marks on the non-writing end. I smiled at that. T had a tendency to absentmindedly chew on pens myself when I was trying to write something. "I'm sorry about that. Jim is a little irreverent, but underneath, it's really a good demon."
Her eyebrows raised high above the red frames of her glasses, the lenses of which had reacted to the bright sunlight and turned dark. "It is a good demon?"
"Yeah. I know that's kind of an oxymoron, but the truth is, Jim was cast out of its demon lord's legions. I don't know all the circumstances, but I think it was because Jim's heart wasn't as dark as those of the other demons."
"Demons do not have hearts," she pointed out.
"You want more water, Aisling? You need more water, yes? I saw you use the water I bring you earlier. It is good. Here is more water. I bring it just for you." Zaccheo materialized at my elbow with a tray full of pitchers of ice water. He set them on the table, his eyes, which I can only describe as moony, watching me besottedly the entire time.
"Thanks, Zaccheo. I think five pitchers is my limit."
"Water is good. Very good for the womens. My mother, she tells me this. Very good for their peepees, yes? Makes no trouble there. I go now. You talk. You drink water."
He zipped off to his serving station, a happy smile on bis face. I glanced at Nora. "He's very attentive."
"Yes, I can see that. And evidently well trained by his mother to anticipate a woman's need of water to avoid urinary tract infections. Commendable, that."
I made a half shrug. There was no way I could explain why Zaccheo seemed to be so enamored of me, so I didn't even try. "I suppose you want to know about this wyvern thing."
She accepted the glass of ice water I poured, absent-mindedly plucking out a slice of lemon and squeezing it into the water. "Yes, but to be honest, I'm more interested in hearing about the naked men hopping in and out of your bed all night long."
"OK," I said, placing both palms down on the table to lean forward, "let me just say right here and now that I had nothing to do with that, nothing at all. They were in-cubi, and they were definitely not invited. Jim makes it sound like there was a whole battalion of them, but there wasn't."
"No? How many were there?"
Even through the darkened lenses of her glasses I could see the amusement in her eyes.
"Er ... six. No, seven. But the last one got a little confused., and he ended up making a play for Drake."
"Ah. Drake. That would be Drake Vireo, the green wyvern, the dragon whose mate you say you are not?"
"Yes, that's him."
Her lips pursed a little as she made another note on her notepad. I resisted the urge to crane my neck to see what it was she was writing. "I see. And yet, despite this, you did spend the night with him?"
I bristled. Just a little bit. "I realize you have to ask all sorts of personal questions about me in order to judge compatibility and all that, but I draw the line at discussing my personal relationships. Since you don't know me well enough to know that Drake is not a factor in my life, I'll make an exception this once. Yes, I spent the night in Drake's bed, but nothing happened there, nothing mateish, nothing intimate. We're just acquaintances, Drake and I. That's all."
"I wouldn't say that," a smooth, silky voice spoke behind me mere nanoseconds before warm fingers caressed the back of my bare neck. Drake pulled out the chair next to me and sat down, his movements smoothly elegant, hinting of controlled power. His fingers remained clasped around the back'of my neck, stirring little wisps of heat that streaked through me, touching off any number of banked fires. "Surely mere acquaintances do not fall asleep clasped in each other's arms?"
I shrugged his hand off my neck, giving him a good glare. How dare he come along and mess up my chances with Nora? "You know full well I was so tired and groggy I fell asleep a few minutes after that last incubus left. That's what you said this morning—that and that slanderous bit about me snoring, which is so patently untrue, I laugh at it. Ha ha."
"You did snore," he said mendaciously, cocking an eyebrow at Zaccheo. The waiter came running, giving me plaintive looks before Drake gave him an order for a Bloody Mary and sent him on his way.
"I am not the one who left scorch marks on the sheets," I pointed out. then quickly explained when Nora's eyebrows rose in shock again. "Unlike silent me, Drake does snore, and things tend to get a little fiery. Trust me—you never want to sleep facing him, or you'll end up with your eyebrows singed."
"Thank you for that advice," Nora said, her voice choked. My heart fell at the sound of it. Clearly she was marking me off the list of apprentice candidates.
Damn Drake and his manly-lipped blabbermouth!
"The only time I breathe fire when I sleep is when my mate is with me," the annoying man said, giving me a sultry look. I thinned my lips at him before I remembered that Nora was watching. I turned a smile on her—not that it would do me any good. My first full day at the conference, and already I had run through five—no six, counting Moa—potential mentors. At the rate I was going, I'd be through all of the attending Guardians before the final awards ceremony.
"I'm sure you have some questions for me. That is, assuming you're willing to overlook certain aspects of my life that would seem to prohibit a serious apprenticeship." I gave the certain aspect in question a quelling look. He simmered at me.
"Actually"—Nora eyed Drake in a thoughtful manner—"I don't think you being a wyvern's mate is prohibitive at all."
I almost choked on the piece of ice I was crunching. "You don’t? But all the other Guardians—Nora. I'll be frank. The other Guardians all more or less washed their respective hands of me the minute they learned about Drake." I cast a glance at him. "Not that there's anything going on there to be worried about."
"Do you challenge me, mate?" he asked, not touching me with anything but his gaze, but oh, baby, that was enough. I shivered under the heated look he was giving me and dragged my reluctant eyes to Nora. "You have not yet paid the price for failing your last challenge."
I ignored Drake. Sometimes it helped. Usually it
didn't.
"I believe you must be an extraordinary woman to be a Guardian, a wyvern's mate, and a demon lord," Nora said briskly, putting her notepad in her case and standing up.
"What?" I blinked at her stupidly for a moment, then stood as well, shaking the hand she offered me. "Wait a second. I'm confused. You don't think the whole mate thing is an issue, but you're leaving? We're not going to have an interview? Don't you want me to fill out an application form like the other Guardians?"
"No," she said, turning to give her hand to Drake. He rose in a graceful movement, soberly taking her hand.
"Aisling is indeed a woman of many talents," he said, "but her priority lies with my sept. She is and will always be my mate. Because of that, I do not approve her seeking to apprentice herself to another."
"Hey!" I said, startled and angry at the same time. How dare he!
"I understand," Nora said. That's all. She just said she understood, and she walked away.
Fury like nothing I'd known since—well, since the last time Drake annoyed me—rose with its brothers irritation and vengeance.
Mindful of the audience of other conference attendees who were taking their midmorning break on the verandah, I didn't light into him right then and there. No, I reminded myself that I was a professional amongst my peers, or people I hoped would be my peers once I had the appropriate training, and professionals do not create scenes in public.
"You are so going to get it when no one can see me rip a strip off you," I hissed, grabbing my purse and conference program from the table.
"Have I told you how arousing I find it when you threaten me?"
I kept my voice low and as mean as I could make it. "Then you're going to love the descriptions of how I'm going to decapitate you if you ever again embarrass me that way. You do not approve me seeking a mentor, Drake? Just who the devil do you think you are? I told you last month that I wasn't going to be your mate. You let me walk away without a single word of protest, if you recall So don't give me this domineering crap now, because I'm not going to stand for it."
He grabbed my arm as I pushed my way past him, swinging me around to face him. His hand on my bare arm sent little frissons of heat throughout my body, frissons I steadfastly ignored. I had made my choice, and by god, I was going to stick to it, no matter how much his gorgeous green eyes seemed to sear my soul.